Packing is really hard. Packing is really really hard when you’re planning to be gone on a 4-month trip (which turned out to be 8 months), and planning on taking as little as possible, all while making sure everything fits into a carry-on bag. Oh, and not to mention having to shove a huge jumbo ziplock bag of Silly Bandz into that 22″ backpack–yeah, that made things a lot more difficult. If only I had talked to Jeff from the Eagle Creek marketing team before my trip; I could have packed much more quickly and efficiently. Check out my Q&A with Jeff on how to Overcome Packing Procrastination!

As a recent college graduate with a severe case of wanderlust, a one-way ticket to travel the world seemed like the best idea at this point in my life. Especially with two of my best friends. As I sit here in the Lexington airport writing this first post, it is amazing to think about how much work and preparation we have put into this trip and theQuest. This blog will be for my stories, and photos of us, while theQuest will be more like our “job” while traveling. theQuest will shoot street-style fashion and do interviews with the people that we encounter, and we have also started The Silly Bandz Project. Packing for a trip when you don’t know how long you will be gone is tough. You can see in the photos below a photo of me in the J&H store, all excited to have my new backpack. You can also see two photos of me on the day that I thought I was leaving (that would be yesterday), trying to squeeze every little thing possible into the tiny space. I eventually had to throw out a lot of what I wanted to take, detach my smaller backpack from the larger one, and I am now rolling my larger one and carrying the smaller one on my back. Ironically, this is the least amount of luggage I have ever had while traveling, and this will be the longest trip I have ever taken. I guess that’s how it’s supposed to be when “backpacking.” It’s hard to say goodbye to people when you have no idea when you will see them again. St. Christopher and a really awesome journal are now joining me on this trip, thanks to two very special people in my life. I hope to share thoughts, […]